I once met a man
who asked me my name
He said it rang beautiful
asked how it was built.

He asked of my home
and how she had fared
My words were mixed
bitter and sweet

I do not recall the tune,
but this is how they were phrased:

My homeland erases herself
She floods in the western waters,
moves with eastern winds
She is everywhere
She is nowhere
She belongs to everyone
And to no one—
Not even herself

She starves
though she is the farmland
the mother with milking breasts.
No, she is the breast itself.

Is it self destruction?
She bites her own hands
Seeking to feed her
wounding herself

Let me explain further:
Her brothers married her off
Unlawfully—
A rake for her dowry
To a man
Who took her sun when he came
And had her brothers turn her children to his slaves

After she kicked and battled,
he left—reluctantly
But not without her soul
Oh and he left behind his footprints
Clothing her with his chains
He left, but with his cage,
Wrapping snugly, her waist.

She once wore the clouds as a crown
but he feared the rain
So he gave her a mop for her head
Straightened, and “fixed”
An Afro bent to his will,
Enslaved to “ideals”
she will never attain

He returned to his original lover
and oh, how she blossoms—
or so it seems…
Her beauty is a garment,
hiding bones and decay,
stolen food that went down the wrong way
a foundation built on blood
Pre-destined to fall

Still, she desires
dreams
burdens herself
To reach for what wasn’t meant to be

She has forgotten herself
the roadmaps of her Creator
Her story
Her birth name…

Her children are grown now.
They love her but don’t
They camouflage the man who came to take
Those are his children;
Their bones from her bones,
But the stench of his blood
Flows through their veins.

Her world has fallen
But she tries—
to stand,
To run,
She limps, she bends
Twists, and turns
But the winds watch her eyes
and blow her astray…

The man nodded,
slowly, like he understood
As if he’d been there

And this is what he said:
“Her true children mourn
her workers flee
And none is left to till the land
In pain they cry,
in the words of my father:
‘I couldn’t say who I am
I haven’t the remotest notion of myself;
I am someone without antecedents,
without a history, without a country, and on that I insist!’
Never to return again?”

“Never to return again,” I replied.

“And you?”

“I have gripped the ninth country
I am all.
I am none.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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